Lin Carter - The City Outside the World Read online

  So he got the money. Never mind how. If, in getting it, he bent a few laws to the breaking point, and filled a fat dossier in the Criminal Files of the Colonial Administration, the getting made him freer than before. The paradox is but one of those Mars affords its visitors.

  The People themselves are by way of being rebels against CA law, which makes them outcasts and criminals, fair game for any cop with a grudge. The only F’yagha they permit a wary sort of welcome into their towns or encampments are, similarly, criminals and outcasts. Ryker had, early on, won the friendship of the native clans, or as much friendship as any Earthsider can win, which isn’t much. Call it toleration if you will, and not friendship. At least he was free to come and go among the People with no questions asked, so long as he kept to himself, left their women alone, kept away from their holy places, and did not meddle in their affairs.

  What he did upon leaving the joy-house was dangerous, very dangerous. For he was breaking those unwritten laws he had so scrupulously observed all these years.

  And the penalty was death.

  Keeping well to the shadows, he was following the dancing girl, the old man and the boy.

  Why he was doing this he could not have explained even to himself. Call it curiosity, if you like, or a hunch. But outcasts like Ryker do not live very long on Mars unless they develop that sixth or seventh sense that permits them to smell out danger before it strikes, and profit before the money is laid out on the table.

  It was that glimpse of the girl’s golden eyes, coupled with that half-erased tattoo on the boy’s smooth breast that made Ryker’s extra sense tingle. For he knew enough of Martian traditions and history to know that in the old time, when the great Martian civilization still basked in its golden twilight and ages before the High Clans and princely bloodlines had mixed and become mongrelized, the lords and nobles of the pure blood had looked forth from

  golden eyes such as those which transformed the girl’s heart-shaped face into a marvel.

  And he had seen that insect sign before.

  Once, years before, in the Eastern Dustlands, he had found and rifled an age-old tomb. Time had buried it deep beneath bone-dry, talcum-fine sand; a chance windstorm -rare on the desert world, though not entirely unheard of—had laid bare the black marble door to the hillside tomb.

  Within had been few pieces of gold and fewer gems, but many artifacts of interest to the scientists. And in those days, before the police dossier which carried Ryker’s name had become quite so fat, he could still come and go in Syrtis Port or Sun Lake City without suspicion or harrassment. So he had sold the tomb artifacts one by one to the historians and the professors interested enough in XT archaeology to ignore the fact that they were purchasing stolen goods. One by one he had sold the little ceramic jars and figurines and symbolic tools and weapons. All but one piece were gone. That one he had kept for himself, for some reason he could not quite put a name to.

  Perhaps it was just a whim. Or perhaps he took a fancy to the thing he had found clasped tight to the bony breast of the Martian mummy, folded tight in withered arms. Or maybe he thought of it as a souvenir, or a good-luck piece. Whatever the reason, it had slept above his heart, suspended on a thong around his neck, all these years, in a little leathern bag.

  It was a seal of slick, glassy black stone, sleek and glistening as obsidian, but heavier than marble. It was a small thing—the palm of one hand could cover it. Small or not, it was a mystery. For no jeweler or geologist to whom he had given shavings from it could name the dense, ebon

  crystal from which it was made. And none of the experts to whom he lent a rubbing copy could read the characters in the unknown and unclassified language which ran around the edge of one side of the seal.

  On the reverse of that seal, deeply embossed in high relief, was a figure, a figure like a fantastic, crouching insect—but such an insect as our fields and forests had never housed. Such an insect as Mars itself was never home to, even in its greener ages.

  But by the shreds and scraps salvaged from the old traditions and sagas and mythologies he knew that strange, crouching insect. In the nearly forgotten lore of the People the creature was known as The Pteraton. The name means “The Guardian of the Gateway”; but it should have been named The Enigma.

  Two thousand miles from the dark, narrow alleys of Yeolarn, its huge stony likeness crouched amid the waste, like some gigantic and mythological Sphinx. A full hundred yards it measured from beaked, antenna-crowned face to tapering, cylindrical thorax-tip. And no man— Martian or Earthsider scientist alike—could say who built it, or when, or why. Or what it signified.

  The Sphinx of Mars the Earthside newscasters called it. And like that other vast Enigma that has crouched for ages in the deserts beyond Gizeh, while empires waxed and waned, its mystery has never been solved.

  Now why, wondered Ryker to himself, was the likeness of the Stone Enigma he had found graven on a black seal from an ancient tomb, why had it once been tattooed upon the naked breast of a nameless, homeless, clanless guttersnipe of a native Martian boy?

  The shadows grew thicker in the maze of alleys that was the Old City.

  As the three glided purposefully on before him, Ryker noticed with distress that they were no longer alone in these narrow ways, save for the shadows.

  For he heard the faint shuffle of sandal leather in the black, yawning mouths of alleys as they went past them— the scrape of boot soles, the faint tread of furtive footsteps.

  Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw a movement among the shadows, as of men gathering for some unknown purpose.

  They were silent and grimly purposeful. They kept a good distance between themselves and the three they followed, but they kept up with them. They neither let them get too far ahead, nor too far behind.

  And now the dancing girl, the old man and the naked boy could be seen to hesitate at the entrance to alleys, to turn aside, to falter. And it slowly dawned upon Ryker that the three he followed were being … herded.

  He looked back over his shoulder at their pursuers. There were very many of them and they were curiously unspeaking.

  They looked to him like a mob. And mobs are as unpredictable, as potentially dangerous, as unruly and as given to sudden whims of violence on Mars as back on Earth.

  Despite the cold, dry air of the evening, sweat broke out upon Ryker’s brow and the skin crawled horribly on the nape of his neck.

  He began to wish, and that most fervently, that he had never let that idle curiosity, that vagrant impulse, lead him out of the tavern to follow the girl with the golden eyes and the boy whose breast bore the Mark of Mystery into the furtive, meandering, shadow-steeped back alleys of old Yeolarn.

  But he had, and there was no turning back now. He

  sensed the mood of the mob behind him. They were after the girl and her companions, not after him. But they would not permit him to escape, either. Whatever lay ahead— towards whatever trap or cul-de-sac they were herding the three fugitives—no witness would be permitted to get away unmolested.

  Especially, no F’yagha witness.

  Ryker growled a bitter curse deep in his throat, and his fingers curled about his gun butt. His hard face grew bleak. His lips thinned, and his cold, pale eyes went hunting restlessly from side to side, for a doorway, an open arcade, a flight of worn steps. But no avenue of escape was left open, he knew within his heart. Silent men stood deep in the shadows, blocking every way out of the maze.

  They came at last into an open square which was walled on three sides by sheer stone surfaces, unbroken by gate or archway.

  At the entrance to this cul-de-sac, Ryker halted and stood aside against the nearer wall in the black shadow of an overhanging second-story balcony, hoping not to be seen.

  The girl, the old man, and the boy, stopped, too, realizing they were trapped and could go no further.

  The silent mob halted at the entrance to the little courtyard, and stood motionless, blacker shadows amid the darkness of the alley
. Ryker drew his gun and hid it in a fold of his cloak and stood there sweating, wishing himself a thousand miles away. He smelled an execution in the air, and the stench of it was fearsome and ugly.

  And then the shadows, which stood ranked motionless, began to … whisper. Ryker cocked his ears to catch the unfamiliar word. It was rarely heard, even in the vilest dens of Mars, but it was not unknown to him.

  “Zhaggua!” the shadows were whispering.

  The word was blunt and unlovely, and they spat it like a curse.

  “Zhaggua! Zhaggua!—Zhaggua!”

  The girl stood, naked under her fringed long-shawl, facing the faceless shadow-throng proudly, masked face lifted fearlessly, and took the ugly word full in the face like a glob of spittle. She took it unflinchingly, Ryker noticed. And even here, with death inches away and only moments in the future, he felt the pure, sweet, singing spirit of her, and he marveled at it. The manhood within him responded to the unconscious grace of her slim, poised body, her thrusting breasts outlined under the thin silken stuff of the shawl, and the pride and scorn eloquent in the fearless lift of that masked face.

  “ZhagguaV’

  The shadows were inching closer now, the glitter of catlike eyes intent on their prey. And the whispering rose to a chant as the ugly strange name, the ugly word, was spat forth. The smell of the mob was rank and vile in Ryker’s nostrils, and the name of that smell was hate. But the reek of fear was in that sharp stench, too. And that was strange.

  For why should the mob, many men strong, fear a slim girl, an old man, and a child?

  But yet another question seethed through the turmoil of Ryker’s thoughts. And it was the strangest mystery of all.

  For the vile, guttural word—Zhaggua—had a meaning. A meaning lost in the dim vistas of the past, shrouded behind old mysteries and forgotten legends, veiled in the obscurity of remote and unremembered aeons.

  It was a dirty word, that ugly grunt of sound. It was a curse, an obscenity, like “nigger” or “wop” or “Commie.”

  It was a word which had once been applied to a people lost in time’s far, forgotten dawn.

  It was a name that had not been used against a living man in millions of years.

  It meant … Devil

  “Zhaggua—Zhaggua—Zhaggua!” the mob chanted, and now Ryker saw they held stones and bricks cupped in eager, trembling hands. Stones, heavy stones, to beat down that slim, proud, fearless, warm gold body. To beat and break and pulp that sleek, perfumed flesh.

  But why?

  Devil—Devil—Devil! The mob growled as it surged forward, stones lifted, to kill.

  3. Red Thirst

  Ryker cursed, shrugged his cloak back over his shoulders, and stepped forward. Knowing himself for a fool, he I if ted his heavy guns. There was nothing else that he could do, after all. He had been many things in his time, and had done those things that tarnish the soul and harden the heart. He had lied, cheated, thieved, and he had killed for hire. But one thing he had never done, and could never do, and live at peace with himself thereafter.

  He had never stood idly by and watched a woman be torn apart by a mob.

  The shrill yammer of his power guns shrieked as they cut through the growling of the mob.

  The thick shadows were split asunder, quite suddenly, by a cold, unearthly light. It was blue-white, that glare of fierce electric fire. And men fell before the blaze of those twin guns as wheat stalks fall before the keen-bladed scythe.

  The mob was as brave as mobs usually are. That is to say, each man lost his own fear in the lust for violence which gripped them all, even as each felt his individuality submerged in the oneness that was the mob.

  Therefore, each man was only as brave as those around him.

  The mob was one animal by now, one huge animal with many parts and one desire in its hot heart—the red thirst for blood. But before the yammering shriek of those guns the mob dissolved into its component units. Those units

  were only men—alone, individual now, isolated from the mob mentality, and terribly vulnerable to the cold fire that spat from the grim muzzles of Ryker’s guns. The men had only bricks and stones and broken bottles in their hands, for power guns were forbidden to the People and were hard to come by in the Old City.

  And bricks and stones and bottles weighed little in the balance against the sizzling death vomited forth by the twin guns held rock-steady in Ryker’s hard, scarred fists.

  A dozen men, maybe more, lay dead on the dusty cobblestones that paved the plaza. And the evil smell of burnt flesh was thick in the nostrils of those who lived.

  The red thirst faded in their hearts, and in its place came fear. They licked their lips. They hesitated. They gave little, quick sideways glances at each other. And they hesitated. Had the mob been goaded on by a leader, it might still have been rallied. But there was no leader to stand forth and confront the bright death held now in check by a finger’s pressure.

  The mob began to crumble, peeling away in scuttling, shadowy figures. First, the rear ranks melted away as if by sorcery. Then from the sides, and men turned away and slunk off into the black ways of the little, crooked alley.

  Finally there were none in all the little plaza, save for Ryker, the girl, her two companions, and the dead.

  Ryker drew a long, ragged breath, and put his guns back in their worn leather holsters, and his heart began to beat again.

  He turned to face the girl, who still stood proudly before her companions, and who had not moved or spoken.

  He cleared his throat and spoke. Some whim made him speak not in the harsh sibilants of the gutter lingo he would have used, but in that old and finer variant of the Tongue spoken only by the warrior princelings of the High Blood.

  For something told him these were no folk of the Low Clans.

  He said, ‘ ‘They will not have gone far. I think they will be waiting for us back at the place where many black alleys open on the way we came. So we must be gone from here, and quickly, and that by another way.”

  For the first time the masked girl spoke, and her voice was like the music made by the chiming of many little silver bells. Clear and sweet was the music of that voice, but cold as metal.

  “And how would you have us go from here, Outworlder? Through the very walls themselves? For there are neither doors nor windows.”

  Ryker indicated the balcony at the far end of the plaza, in whose shadow he had stood when the mob first charged. The girl nodded without words. He made as if to help her ascend the wall, but she ignored the hand he proffered. With the kick of her long dancer’s legs she sprang into the air, caught ahold of the bottom ledge, and swung herself nimbly up and upon the carven stone balustrade.

  Ryker lifted the old man up to her and between them they got him over the rail. He was very light, his arms and legs as thin as sticks. He said nothing.

  The naked boy gave Ryker one bright glance of pure mockery and mischief, then sprang as lightly as an acrobat upon the Earthling’s shoulders and gained the balcony. Ryker jumped up and caught the carved rail and heaved himself up and over it. Despite the lower gravity of Mars, the exertion left him red faced and puffing. He was unaccustomed to such acrobatics. The boy giggled, but the old man and the girl said nothing.

  The small, roofed balcony gave way to a second-floor room, but the way was barred by shutters, tightly closed and locked from within. On Earth the shutters would have

  been of wood, but here on the desert world where wood was almost as rare as water, they were of thin, fretted and carven stone which resembled lucent alabaster. The stone was thin and fragile. Ryker kicked the shutters in with one thrust of his booted feet.

  They crawled through the opening he had made, and found themselves in a long-unused room, thick with soft dust, the air of which was sour from old cooking smells. A few pieces of ancient furniture stood along the walls, covered with cloths. A tall door of worn metal, also locked, gave way to a narrow landing and a flight of steps leading down to the street level.r />
  There were no windows which gave forth upon the next street, but eye-chinks were cut into the stone walls to either side of the main door in the Martian manner. The view through these peepholes suggested that the street beyond was empty of men. But Ryker had learned caution in a hard school, and felt uncertain that the way to freedom was quite as clear as it seemed to be.

  ‘ ‘Do you and your friends have a place of refuge where you will be safe?” he asked. The girl shrugged slim shoulders under her silken shawl.

  “A purchased room in the House of the Three Djinns, near the Caravan Gate,” she murmurred listlessly. Ryker thought quickly. He knew the place she meant, an old hostelry whose courtyard was guarded by three stone colossi called Ushongti—dj innlike giants out of Martian legend. The Caravan Gate was to the north of the Old City. The twistings and turnings of the winding alleys had confused him, and he could not say for certain how much of the city they must traverse to reach the caravanserai.

  “But it will be no longer safe for us,” the girl added in her sing-song voice, cool and sad as faint chimes heard at twilight.

  “Why so?”

  She shrugged again.

  “Now that the hualatha have found us,” she mur-inurred, “there is no safe refuge for such as we in all of Yeolarn.”

  By hualatha, she meant “holy ones,” or priests. A cold wind was blowing up Ryker’s spine, and, again, he wished he had never obeyed that whim of curiosity that had led him to follow the girl and her companions out into the night.

  “Was it the hualatha who set the mob on you?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “Did you not notice the hua among the fallen?”

  Ryker thought back to the litter of the dead they had left in the little square behind this house. He had noticed that one of the men he had gunned down wore black, cowled robes. Now that he thought about it, the corpse had been of a man with a shaven pate, like a priest. He almost remembered the silver sigils clipped to the man’s earlobes in the priestly manner.